Comments

Revised Common Lectionary Commentary

Clippings:
Fourth Sunday of Easter - May 7, 2017

Saint Dominiccontemplating the Scriptures

Author's note:Sometimes I have material left over when I edit Comments down to
fit the available space. This page presents notes that landed on the clipping
room floor. Some may be useful to you. While I avoid technical language
in the Comments (or explain special terms), Clippings may have unexplained
jargon from time to time.

A hypertext Glossary of Terms is integrated with Clippings. Simply
click on any highlighted word in the text and a pop-up window will appear
with a definition. Bibliographic references are also integrated in the
same way.

Acts 2:42-47

In this summary (as in other summaries), incidents in adjacent narratives are
shown to be usual, typical and continued. Other summaries are found in
4:32-35 and
5:12-15. The parallels between this summary and others are:

Verse 42: “the breaking of bread”: Apparently a common meal
including the Eucharist. See 1 Corinthians
11:17-34. The risen Jesus broke bread with Cleopas and another disciple at Emmaus
(see Luke
24:35). This practice recalls Jesus’ practice during his lifetime with
respect to breaking bread: see Luke
9:11-27 (the Feeding of the Five Thousand) and
22:14-38 (the Last Supper). In Acts, see also v.
46;
20:7,
11;
27:35. [
NOAB] [
NJBC]

Verses 43-47: We know that the
Essenes and the
Qumran community also shared everything in common. Later members of the Jerusalem
church were so impoverished that Paul made a collection for them.

Verse 43: “many wonders and signs were being done”: This shows
that the messianic kingdom is breaking through from the age to come into the present
age. Peter quotes from Joel in v.
19. [
NJBC]

Comments: a little later such sharing was not the universal rule
: 5:1-5 tells of Ananias who, with his wife’s consent, sold a piece of property.
Rather than contributing all the proceeds to the common purse, he withheld part.

Verse 3: “soul”: i.e. the vitality, the individualized principle
of life. [
NOAB]

Verse 4: “darkest valley”:
NOAB says that shadow of death is an ancient, but probably fanciful, rendering.
See also
44:19;
107:10; Job
3:5; Isaiah
9:2 where the same Hebrew expression occurs and is translated in terms of darkness.
[
NOAB]
NJBC disagrees; he says that shadow of death is possible.

Verse 5: Kings in the ancient Near East would give lavish banquets on
special occasions; hence this image continues the theme of the provident shepherd-king.
See 1 Kings
8:65-66 for a “festival” given by Solomon for all the people. [
NJBC]

Verse 6a: The psalmist prays that only the good effects of the covenant
now pursue him throughout his life. [
NJBC]

Verse 6: “I shall dwell”:
NJBC offers may I dwell. The Hebrew verb can mean return or
dwell; the ambivalence is probably deliberate, alluding to the exiles’
hope of returning home. See also
27:4.

Verse 6: “the house of the
Lord”: The Hebrew term can also mean the land of Israel in general.
[
NJBC]

2:11-12: How Christians are seen outside the Church. See also
3:16; Titus
2:7-8;
3:1-2. [
CAB] Stoic wisdom of the time exalted persons who were not driven by passions,
but here such conduct is to the glory of God. [
IntPet]

2:11: “aliens and exiles”: One scholar offers visiting
strangers and resident aliens. By becoming Christians, they were demoted to a
lower social class: see Hebrews
10:32-34. In 1 Peter, the true home of the Christian is not so much the world
to come (as in Hebrews) as the Christian community: see, for example, v.
17: “Love the family of believers”. [
NJBC]

2:11: “wage war”: In Romans
7:23, Paul says of himself: “I see in my members another law at war with
the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members”.
[
NOAB]

2:17: “Fear God. ...”: An adaptation of Proverbs
24:21. In Matthew
22:21, Jesus tells some Pharisees: “‘Give therefore to the emperor
the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s’”.
In Romans
13:6-7, Paul writes: “For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities
are God's servants, busy with this very thing. Pay to all what is due them –
taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect
is due, honour to whom honour is due”. [
NOAB] [
NJBC]

2:18-3:7: A section on the obligations of Christians. Guidelines are given
for the behaviour of three groups: slaves (
2:18-25), wives (
3:1-6) and husbands (
3:7). For other similar
household codes, see Ephesians
5:22-6:9; Colossians
3:18-4:1; 1 Timothy
6:1-2; Titus
2:9-10. While the passages in Ephesians and Colossians contain instructions to
both the inferior and superior members of the household, here masters are not addressed
at all and husbands are addressed with the short form typical of household codes
(in
3:7). [
NOAB] [
NJBC] [
CAB]
IntPet notes that only those who are dependent on superiors (slaves and women)
are addressed; he suggests that the masters and husbands here were pagans.

2:18: “accept the authority ... with all deference”:
IntPet suggests that in all fear is a better translation, that this describes
the slaves’ individual relationships to God rather than to their masters.

2:21: The quotation is from the
Septuagint translation of Isaiah
53:9b. “Sin” has been substituted for lawlessness, thus tying
this quotation with the allusion to Isaiah
53:4,
12b in v.
24, “he ... bore our sins”. [
IntPet]

2:24: “bore our sins”: In Isaiah
53:4, a verse in the fourth
Servant Song, we read “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried
our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted”.
See also Hebrews
9:28. [
CAB] [
NJBC]

2:24: “cross”: Literally tree. Tree or wood
is a very early Christian term for the cross: see Acts
5:30 (“Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree”);
10:39;
13:29; Galatians
3:13. [
NJBC]

2:24: “free from sins ...”: The
REB offers “we might cease to live for sin and begin to live for righteousness”

2:25: The suffering servant, vindicated by God in the Resurrection, becomes
the Good Shepherd. Ezekiel
34:5-16, a passage that promises that God will shepherd the neglected sheep underlies
the transition from straying sheep to the injunction to return to the shepherd. [
IntPet]

2:25: “guardian”: The Greek word, episkopos, also occurs
in
5:2-4 and Acts
20:28, where it is translated as “oversight” and “overseers”
respectively. [
NJBC]

John 10:1-10

The division between Chapter
9 and Chapter
10 is unfortunate. (Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, who died in 1208,
is credited with dividing the Bible into chapters.)

This chapter is difficult to understand partly because Jesus switches metaphor
several times, a practice which was common in his time and for centuries after, but
which is frowned on (to say the least!) today.

Verses 1-10: There is a selection of shepherds (leaders) here and also
one of sheep (followers).

Verse 1: “climbs in”: No metaphor is perfect!

Verse 2: “shepherd”: Jesus may mean either the leader of the
community or himself. If the latter, he shifts metaphor between v.
2 and v.
3. Both the shepherd and the gatekeeper/gate protect. The metaphor definitely
shifts in v.
11ff to Jesus as the shepherd.

Verse 6: “figure of speech”: The Greek word is paroimia
, meaning metaphor, parable, proverb, or enigmatic or fictitious illustration. The
REB translates the word as parable. In spite of Jesus’ explanation
(vv.
7-8), it is hard to understand, and has been interpreted in various ways.

Verses 7-10: A quotation from
BlkJn (adapted to the NRSV translation) is an attempt to help in understanding
this passage:

If the
“gate of the sheep” here represents accurately what Jesus said, then
... [vv.
7-10] are in an almost intolerable state of confusion. But if the suggestion
is adopted that in an Aramaic original the accidental repetition of one letter (a
tau) has caused the shepherd to be read as “the gate”, then verses
7 and 8 give an interpretation consistent with the original parable, and the allegory
does not begin until verse 9.

This suggestion does depend on a lot of conjecture. It assumes first that there
was an Aramaic original, second that it got corrupted, third that it was translated
into Greek from one who was working from text and not oral tradition, fourth that
the translator did not pick up on the error and fifth that there is still an allegory
about an entrance further down. Note that, as we have the text, “I am the gate”
occurs twice: in v.
7 and v.
9. We have no fragments of the gospels in Aramaic other than translations from
the Greek.

Verse 7: “I am the gate”: i.e. I determine who is admitted
to the community.

Verse 8: “All who came before me”: Some scholars understand
this to mean messianic pretenders; however, for this to be the case, Chapter
10 would need to be a separate unit from Chapter
9.

BlkJn sees the “thieves and bandits” as pseudo-Messiahs. He says
“this is indicated by the absolute use of came, i.e. claiming to be
the coming one”. Grouping thieves and bandits with pseudo-Messiahs fits
with the first-century Jewish historian
Josephus’ view that there are four philosophies of which this group, which
includes revolutionaries, is the fourth. (The other three are the
Pharisees, the
Sadducees and the
Essenes.) Recall that Jesus was crucified with thieves and bandits.

But I think that this does not take the context into account. How can we account
both for the previous discussion with the Pharisees, and their subsequent reaction?
They are not thieves and bandits, nor are they false Messiahs. Rather they are good,
upstanding, moral, respectable religious leaders. Why would they be so upset at Jesus
for this Good Shepherd metaphor/allegory? Or are the Pharisees the hired hands
of v.
12?

Verse 9: “will be saved”: i.e. will escape from the perils
of having gone against God’s ways.

Jesus fulfils Old Testament promises that God will himself come to shepherd his
people: see Isaiah
40:11 (“He will feed his flock like a shepherd”); Jeremiah
23:1-6; Ezekiel
34 (especially v.
11: “thus says the Lord God
: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out”).